The statements in this section merely provide background information related to the present disclosure and may not constitute prior art.
As any responsible firearm owner will attest, firearms should always remain locked when they are not in use, so as to prevent an accidental discharge of the same and/or to prevent access by an unauthorized individual. As such, there are many known types of commercially available firearm locking mechanisms such as trigger guards and/or trigger locks, for example which can be secured along or about the external portion of the firearm trigger to prevent access to the same.
Although useful in their inception, these devices suffer from several drawbacks. For example, because these locking mechanisms are externally mounted, it is not uncommon for one or more pieces of the lock to become lost when the same is not secured onto the weapon. Additionally, it is not uncommon for users to secure the lock onto the weapon incorrectly, thereby causing a situation where unauthorized access can occur. Finally, the time required to correctly secure and/or physically remove the external lock may be unacceptable in emergency situations where the user needs immediate access to the weapon.
For these reasons, many individuals forego such devices and instead store the weapon with the integrated selector switch at SAFE. Although the selector switch does work well to prevent an inadvertent discharge of the firearm, it does nothing to prevent an unauthorized user from firing the weapon by transitioning the switch from SAFE to FIRE.
The present invention, directed to a firearm with selector switch lock differs from the conventional art in a number of aspects. The manner by which will become more apparent in the description which follows, particularly when read in conjunction with the accompanying drawings.